It's more than 120 days but revisiting these “Gidgies” and the previous theory they might be related to the Sextant Box.
We know now the Sextant Box was left behind during the Bushnell Survey, but their survey team didn’t report seeing a body or camp.
So let’s assume the Sextant Box was left behind some distance away from the Seven Site. Possibly close to the nearest point marked along the lagoon on the Bushnell survey map.
A scenario could be the Gidgies, handmade from aluminum sheet, are related to work done on the island by colonist after the search. Possibly salvaged a crashed airplane, on Gardner or another island.
A second scenario could be a colonist in the work crew found the Bushnell sextant box. He moved it a short distance to the Seven Site where they found the skull. He unscrewed the “Gidgies” there. Then he started to use it as merely a receptacle. When an extensive search was ordered he realized it was important and reported he had found the box earlier. He also added information that he threw away what might have been part of an eyepiece. In that scenario the sextant box and these artifacts could still be related. But the extensive search party didn’t find the parts he unscrewed, and there are no reports that the finder told them about unscrewing them.
A third scenario could be that the Bushnell Survey team was using one of their older sextant boxes as merely a receptacle for odd parts from the start. It wasn’t missed by the survey party at any of the other survey points marked near the lagoon because it didn’t contain a sextant for their survey work. The box was found by colonist during their extensive search near the survey point along the lagoon shore where the Bushnell team left it. The finder claims he threw away part of a broken eyepiece that was with it. In this scenario the “Gidgies” artifacts found decades later, don’t seem related to the old Bushnell sextant box.
If related to Earhart, what wood object might Earhart haul across the island that could have the Gidgies? Possibly a repurposed wood toolbox on the plane that may have been taken or floated to shore?
The Gidgies still seem like strap fasteners for a wood box to me. There are two of them. They have wood screws. The jagged teeth with slightly rounded tips intended to spread out the forces on the leather strap so a single hole doesn’t stretch too wide like on the average worn out leather pants belt.
As noted before, the image with Earhart and Noonan sitting under the tail of the Electra has a box with a strap.
https://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/digital/collection/earhart/id/327/rec/348 Commenters on the theory that this box may have strap fasteners noted that it made no sense for it to be the sextant box. It seemed like it was just a toolbox. I was never married to the Sextant Box theory. The Gidgies could be from another box. That toolbox.
That theory still intrigues me because of one of the Gidgies is bent and the strap on the box in the Earhart/ Noonan image looks forced out, like its fastener is bent.
I’m interested to hear what could be possible uses for these Gidgies now that we have new information regarding the circumstances of the Bushnell sextant box?